Macedonia remembers tiny Jewish community

AP , Associated Press

Mar. 11, 201312:01 PM ET

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) — Macedonia on Monday marked the 70th anniversary of the deportation of nearly its entire Jewish community to a Nazi death camp during World War II, while a U.S.-based diaspora group called on neighbor Bulgaria to apologize for its role in the Holocaust.

Boris Grdanoski

A woman stands in front of a memorial for 7,144 Macedonian Jews, in the tobacco warehouses in Skopje, Macedonia, on Monday, March 11, 2013. Macedonia commemorates 70-years of the holocaust of its Jewish community, almost completely wiped out during the Nazis’ occupation of this tiny Balkan country during World War II. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

A woman stands in front of a memorial for 7,144 Macedonian Jews, in the tobacco warehouses in Skopje, Macedonia, on Monday, March 11, 2013. Macedonia commemorates 70-years of the holocaust of its Jewish community, almost completely wiped out during the Nazis’ occupation of this tiny Balkan country during World War II. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

Flowers and a pebble are seen on a memorial for 7,144 Macedonian Jews, in a tobacco warehouses in Skopje, Macedonia, on Monday, March 11, 2013. Macedonia commemorates 70-years of the holocaust of its Jewish community, almost completely wiped out during the Nazis’ occupation of this tiny Balkan country during World War II. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

An elderly Jewish man bows in front of a memorial for 7,144 Macedonian Jews, in the government tobacco warehouses in Skopje, Macedonia, on Monday, March 11, 2013. Macedonia commemorates 70-years of the holocaust of its Jewish community, almost completely wiped out during the Nazis’ occupation of this tiny Balkan country during World War II. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

Josef Zisels of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress lays a wreath at a memorial for 7,144 Macedonian Jews, in the government tobacco warehouses in Skopje, Macedonia, on Monday, March 11, 2013. Macedonia commemorates 70-years of the holocaust of its Jewish community, almost completely wiped out during the Nazis’ occupation of this tiny Balkan country during World War II. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

Israeli Ambassador to Macedonia, Yosef Amrani, left and Honorary Consul of Israel to Macedonia Viktor Mizrahi, center, lay flowers at a memorial for 7,144 Macedonian Jews, in the government tobacco warehouses in Skopje, Macedonia, on Monday, March 11, 2013. Macedonia commemorates 70-years of the holocaust of its Jewish community, almost completely wiped out during the Nazis’ occupation of this tiny Balkan country during World War II. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

Rabbi Luciano Moshe Prelevic tells Kaddish at a memorial for 7,144 Macedonian Jews, in the government tobacco warehouses in Skopje, Macedonia, on Monday, March 11, 2013. Macedonia commemorates 70-years of the holocaust of its Jewish community, almost completely wiped out during the Nazis’ occupation of this tiny Balkan country during World War II. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

Culture Minister Elizabeta Milevska led the memorial to honor the 7,144 people who were deported. Only about 50 of them survived.

Macedonia was part of Yugoslavia until its independence in 1991, and most of its territory was occupied during the war by Bulgaria.

The Washington D.C.-based group Macedonian United Diaspora on Monday called on Bulgaria to make a public apology for the country's role in the murder of Macedonian Jews, who were sent by train to the Treblinka concentration camp in occupied Poland.

There was no immediate reaction from officials in Bulgaria. But the country's parliament acknowledged Friday that 11,343 Jews had been deported to Nazi concentration camps from areas under Bulgarian wartime control — in Greece and Yugoslavia.

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) — Macedonia on Monday marked the 70th anniversary of the deportation of nearly its entire Jewish community to a Nazi death camp during World War II, while a U.S.-based diaspora group called on neighbor Bulgaria to apologize for its role in the Holocaust.